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Benign ‘See-Through’ Renovation in Singapore from Wallflower

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This charming little townhouse is a renovation of an old Singapore Mews house that was extraordinarily poorly designed.

This was its barely liveable windowless floor plan! Ripe for a radical makeover, but how to do that while staying within the long, narrow, windowless exterior wall?

With too many walls, and no light from each side, none of the rooms were liveable.

Here is the makeover proposed by Singapore’s Wallflower Architecture and Design.

Note the square courtyard in its center (10).

This central courtyard lights up all three ‘rooms’ to each side, the living the dining, and…

…the bedroom.

The light from the one small courtyard gets recycled between all three ‘rooms’.

That one change, by bringing light down into the center of the long space makes all the difference to the house.

Then, the architects opened up the entire back wall of the house, so light comes in from the back garden.

Previously, the perfunctory yard was entered by a tiny foyer off to the side of a closed room, so absolutely no light could enter from the back yard.

Now a simple and elegant gallery kitchen area in the main space offers direct egress to the back garden.

Similarly, the poky front of the house had no privacy.

In the renovation, this front is fully enclosed, and is a private space that can only be seen with the gates open, as here.

Now looking out towards the street a private wall and gate blocks the street view, creating a second courtyard in front of the house.

Wallflower has come up with a very brilliant solution for a very difficult site.